Don't forget other original games, like Typing of the Dead, which was basically a typing tutorial version of House of the Dead. Sega is the only comapny I can think of that puts unique games like that on the market. I'm sure glad to hear they're going to be making games for several platforms:-)
Simply put, there are two reasons I have a problem with Dmitri's arrest:
1)At the very least, this should be a civil suit, and not a criminal one. Since when has the responsibility for protecting copyrighted material fallen onto the government instead of the copyright holder?
2)The DMCA is an unconstitutional law which should never have been passed in the first place.
What more needs to be said? Free Dmitri and strike down the DMCA.
While I think your sidenote is interesting, I think there is a flaw in it. If you watch a game of basketball and a player is "in the zone" you will often see the opposition react to this and they will add more defensive pressure to the player. Thus, for the player to continue being streaky they actually have to work harder to score, thus indicating that if they continue to do so, they are probably in an actual "zone" and that it isn't just a case of simple statistics.
Why not copyright your site and claim that it is encrypted in a format which you call HTML? Then sue this company for violating the DMCA because they "cracked" your encryption in order to alter the content protected by your copyright. As long as the DMCA hasn't been repealed, we may as well make use of it to annoy anyone and everyone until they start pushing for it to be repealed.
I hope that they succeed. It seems to me that the scientists have a good point here - the current system is pretty outrageous.
On a side note, there's another step they could take. Have each person who's signed the letter send a letter of cancelation to every magazine, such as Science, that they subscribe to. In the letter they should state that their reason for cancelation is due to the magazine's failure to meet the demands. If that many scientists dropped their subscriptions, the magazines and journals would have to listen, because then it truly affects their bottom line.
In matters of $, it's often better to let your money do the talking instead of your mouth.
I'm not saying that we should have bio-sniffing dogs at every post office. I was just underscoring the fact that it would be incredibly easy to commit this sort of terrorism. As for your ideas about changing foreign policy, I think you're right on the money.
The biggest question that this brings up in my mind, is what can can we really do? I mean, searching for bombs at airports and borders is one thing. But bio-attacks are a completely different matter. Since you can hide bio-matter almost anywhere it isn't feasibly possible to insure that it won't get into the country some way, or even worse, simply be developed within the country.
As far as I can tell, the only thing we can really do is research ways to create vaccines for different diseases and insure that we can produce them if needed. Anybody else have any other semi-realistic solutions to this problem, or is it just pretty much unsolvable?
Or, you could just not put anything at all and ship the biohazard across the country. While they may try and find some threats, like bombs, you can hide bacteria on(in) just about anything.
I totally agree. I remember reading and re-reading all the extra's that came with the old Infocom games. It was so neat, and the extra background stuff, like the catalogue from the Frobozz magic company (or something like that), helped to draw you more deeply into the games. How about the glow in the dark stone from Wishbringer? My brother still has it. If only I could feed him to a Grue so I could take it...
First off, I'm 22. While I haven't played all the old Infocom games, I've played a few of them. I still remember finishing Wishbringer as a youngster(probably 10ish); I think it was the first computer game I ever beat. Yep, those were the days. I just got a copy of the Infocom Masterpieces CD and it's pretty sweet, even compared with today's games.
As the reviewer noted, what the hell can they be thinking including the files in MSDOS format, when the reader will almost certainly be using a Linux machine?
This book (at least from what the review says) exemplifies everything that is wrong with most programming books - they seem to be rushed to market with little or no concern for accuracy and usefullness. They simply put a title on a book which makes it seem like it would be helpful in order to sell copies, and then they provide very little, if any, useful content. It's sad how hard it is to find a decent, helpful book.
While I think Napster will never return to its "glory days," I am happy that the absolutely ridiculous decision by judge Marilyn Patel was overturned; if it hadn't been it would have set a horrible legal precedent which could be used to block out sites all over the internet.
"We've found that 7 years ago someone traded an illegal file via your site. We're going to have to shut you down because you didn't filter out 100% of copyrighted material."
All in all, I'm just not too thrilled seeing their list of nominees and winners. It seems that most of these sights are just web versions of something that is already out there in the "real" world (MSNBC) and don't offer anything substantially new. It seems like really innovative sites are, for the most part, completely ignored.
Wouldn't it be funny if the government decided to copyright every law it passed, and then didn't allow anyone to publish them? Then you would just have to take the word of the Police, FBI, NSA, etc. that you had broken the law.
I can see it all now: "Officer, what did I do wrong?" "You turned left onto Jefferson St. on Friday the 13th. That'll be a $3000 fine, payable to me."
Think about it. Isn't this really just the next step in the logical extension of copyright laws? Hopefully this kind of slap in the face will finally wake up the public at large into changing some of the ridiculous laws that are currently "on the books."
Sorry for the rotten attempt at a pun. Except for that, the rest of my comment is quite serious.
I see what you mean...although I would argue that I can definitely tell a difference between the sound on a pair of Klipsch(sp?) speakers and the crappy CD players you would pick up at Target or Wal-Mart. However, thanks for the correction about the production on CD's...and although I didn't state it, I was thinking more about live performances when I was discussing the difference between what an untrained and a trained ear might hear.
In the article it mentions that they plan to bring this to elementary schools...aren't there others who need it just a teensy bit more? While I understand that there are large educational opportunities here, I think we need to worry about every college & highschool having it before we even start to think about giving it to grade schoolers.
Pretty soon little Bobby is going to come home and announce that he has a better internet connection at school than his dad, who is a M$ employee, has at work.
Slashdot Mirror
And they could have IE and messenger replace Boardwalk and Park Place...
Don't forget other original games, like Typing of the Dead, which was basically a typing tutorial version of House of the Dead. Sega is the only comapny I can think of that puts unique games like that on the market. I'm sure glad to hear they're going to be making games for several platforms :-)
I still believe in spreading cooties the old fashioned way...it's a lot more fun!
Maybe I can finally get some decent backlighting for the Gameboy Advance ;-)
Simply put, there are two reasons I have a problem with Dmitri's arrest:
1)At the very least, this should be a civil suit, and not a criminal one. Since when has the responsibility for protecting copyrighted material fallen onto the government instead of the copyright holder?
2)The DMCA is an unconstitutional law which should never have been passed in the first place.
What more needs to be said? Free Dmitri and strike down the DMCA.
While I think your sidenote is interesting, I think there is a flaw in it. If you watch a game of basketball and a player is "in the zone" you will often see the opposition react to this and they will add more defensive pressure to the player. Thus, for the player to continue being streaky they actually have to work harder to score, thus indicating that if they continue to do so, they are probably in an actual "zone" and that it isn't just a case of simple statistics.
But Britney does have talent!
It's just that you usually the only place you see that kind of talent is in porno movies...
Why not copyright your site and claim that it is encrypted in a format which you call HTML? Then sue this company for violating the DMCA because they "cracked" your encryption in order to alter the content protected by your copyright. As long as the DMCA hasn't been repealed, we may as well make use of it to annoy anyone and everyone until they start pushing for it to be repealed.
I think the winner could quite well be SNOBOL.
:-)
It sure would be nice to hear some positive news about SNOBOLing
I know, bad joke
I hope that they succeed. It seems to me that the scientists have a good point here - the current system is pretty outrageous.
On a side note, there's another step they could take. Have each person who's signed the letter send a letter of cancelation to every magazine, such as Science, that they subscribe to. In the letter they should state that their reason for cancelation is due to the magazine's failure to meet the demands. If that many scientists dropped their subscriptions, the magazines and journals would have to listen, because then it truly affects their bottom line.
In matters of $, it's often better to let your money do the talking instead of your mouth.
Does that mean that if an ISP's machine spreads a virus, worm, etc. they pay all their customers in order to keep them more responsible? Sweet...
I'm not saying that we should have bio-sniffing dogs at every post office. I was just underscoring the fact that it would be incredibly easy to commit this sort of terrorism. As for your ideas about changing foreign policy, I think you're right on the money.
The biggest question that this brings up in my mind, is what can can we really do? I mean, searching for bombs at airports and borders is one thing. But bio-attacks are a completely different matter. Since you can hide bio-matter almost anywhere it isn't feasibly possible to insure that it won't get into the country some way, or even worse, simply be developed within the country.
As far as I can tell, the only thing we can really do is research ways to create vaccines for different diseases and insure that we can produce them if needed. Anybody else have any other semi-realistic solutions to this problem, or is it just pretty much unsolvable?
Or, you could just not put anything at all and ship the biohazard across the country. While they may try and find some threats, like bombs, you can hide bacteria on(in) just about anything.
Don't we live in great times?
I totally agree. I remember reading and re-reading all the extra's that came with the old Infocom games. It was so neat, and the extra background stuff, like the catalogue from the Frobozz magic company (or something like that), helped to draw you more deeply into the games. How about the glow in the dark stone from Wishbringer? My brother still has it. If only I could feed him to a Grue so I could take it...
First off, I'm 22. While I haven't played all the old Infocom games, I've played a few of them. I still remember finishing Wishbringer as a youngster(probably 10ish); I think it was the first computer game I ever beat. Yep, those were the days. I just got a copy of the Infocom Masterpieces CD and it's pretty sweet, even compared with today's games.
If anyone is interested, I have 3 of the Infocom Masterpieces CD's MIB. I'd sell em' for what I paid for them. Just a shameless plug...
As the reviewer noted, what the hell can they be thinking including the files in MSDOS format, when the reader will almost certainly be using a Linux machine?
This book (at least from what the review says) exemplifies everything that is wrong with most programming books - they seem to be rushed to market with little or no concern for accuracy and usefullness. They simply put a title on a book which makes it seem like it would be helpful in order to sell copies, and then they provide very little, if any, useful content. It's sad how hard it is to find a decent, helpful book.
While I think Napster will never return to its "glory days," I am happy that the absolutely ridiculous decision by judge Marilyn Patel was overturned; if it hadn't been it would have set a horrible legal precedent which could be used to block out sites all over the internet.
"We've found that 7 years ago someone traded an illegal file via your site. We're going to have to shut you down because you didn't filter out 100% of copyrighted material."
All in all, I'm just not too thrilled seeing their list of nominees and winners. It seems that most of these sights are just web versions of something that is already out there in the "real" world (MSNBC) and don't offer anything substantially new. It seems like really innovative sites are, for the most part, completely ignored.
When I made the comment, it was as a joke...it's really sickening that this is actually happeing. Oh for the days of actual freedom...
Wouldn't it be funny if the government decided to copyright every law it passed, and then didn't allow anyone to publish them? Then you would just have to take the word of the Police, FBI, NSA, etc. that you had broken the law.
I can see it all now:
"Officer, what did I do wrong?"
"You turned left onto Jefferson St. on Friday the 13th. That'll be a $3000 fine, payable to me."
Think about it. Isn't this really just the next step in the logical extension of copyright laws? Hopefully this kind of slap in the face will finally wake up the public at large into changing some of the ridiculous laws that are currently "on the books."
Sorry for the rotten attempt at a pun. Except for that, the rest of my comment is quite serious.
I see what you mean...although I would argue that I can definitely tell a difference between the sound on a pair of Klipsch(sp?) speakers and the crappy CD players you would pick up at Target or Wal-Mart. However, thanks for the correction about the production on CD's...and although I didn't state it, I was thinking more about live performances when I was discussing the difference between what an untrained and a trained ear might hear.
In the article it mentions that they plan to bring this to elementary schools...aren't there others who need it just a teensy bit more? While I understand that there are large educational opportunities here, I think we need to worry about every college & highschool having it before we even start to think about giving it to grade schoolers.
Pretty soon little Bobby is going to come home and announce that he has a better internet connection at school than his dad, who is a M$ employee, has at work.